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From a policy point of view, if da district is paying for this training for teachers (which I can't imagine any teachers' union not insisting upon :P), it's not a good investment of taxpayer dollars.

A lot of da cops in schools as I understand it are paid for through the federal Community Policing (COPS) dollars, which is another big, dumb, expensive government program that conservatives should rightly object to.

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For similar, even stronger, evidence of the futility of CCW watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JSKeUaC28

the relevant portion kicks in at 1:23

Note well, even with pistol at the ready, and even though he apparently hits his attacker several times, the defender remains helpless as the Spirit of Anubis presses the attack. And this in spite of the fact that he is armed with a custom cartoon pseudo-luger that manages semi-auto fire with no apparent action other than a bit of recoil from firing what appear to be exotic super low velocity specialized anti-mummy rounds.

And it's not just concealable weapons in the hands of bumbling cartoon villains that are futile. In the same video clip, skip forward to 4:36 and see a highly trained professional, Race Bannon himself, using a semi-auto long gun against an invisible monster attack... to absolutely no avail.
(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

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That piece of propaganda is actually pretty well known and it was a setup. The attackers knew who was "armed" and where he was sitting before the scenario began. The students were purposely chosen to be unfamiliar with handling their firearms and they weren't trained properly before the scenario began.

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One thing that occurred to me - the "armed student" must have known that he or she was really unarmed. After all, they were shown they had paint type ammunition, not real ammunition in their guns. I don't believe any of that video was a reasonable facsimile of real life, because in order to approximate a real life style drill, you would have needed to convince the student they had real ammunition, such as rounds with no primer and powder. In fact, none of the kids could reasonably believe they were actually armed at all. I would have just ducked and never drawn either in that scenario. The whole video may have been preplanned completely.

That said, a statistically small proportion of gun owners have taken training in combat style confrontations, and a much smaller proportion of them will prevail against an armed intruder that bursts into a closed room already cocked and locked. Not really a survivable scenario even if one was trained.

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These kinds of events are actually a lot more common than the staged scenario described above: a good man with a CCW intervenes and saves a woman's life. No one gets shot, but the presence of a lawfully owned concealed firearm dissuades a person with evil intentions:

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Ultimately, I don't want anyone deciding what part of the 2nd Amendment should apply to me. The 2nd Amendment is not about sensible restrictions. The original intent of the 2nd Amendment was to arm the civilian population against a tyrannical government. When you ask "how do we know what the intent was?", consider that the founders of our country had just fought a war against a government. It's not about the right to hunt or the right to target shoot. It's about having the ability to defend yourself.

Of course times change. You'd lose if you went up against a government. Look at the recent situation with the former cop out in LA - did anyone really expect that he would make it to trial? Of course not. You can't win against a cadre of guys with guns that are, well, gunning for you. Or when they bring in the tanks or the helicopters or whatever. But if the question was "what is the purpose" of the 2nd Amendment? It's to arm the civilian population.

When we consider how times have changed, we can think about the right of self defense and how the government has no obligation to protect any of us from assault or worse. Since I don't have a full time law enforcement officer to follow me around and offer that protection, what's wrong with me making the decision to carry a firearm? Yes, I *could* do all sorts of bad things with a concealed firearm. But I could do bad things with my car, my baseball bat, my computer, etc. I'm far from "ultra" passionate about this issue, yet see nothing wrong with me having the same rights as those offered to a law enforcement officer or a politician that has the luxury of having those full time armed professionals following them around. My ask is to judge me based upon what I have done... not what someone is afraid that I could do. I know this next part is trite, but I have a penis. I'm fully capable of being a rapist. But I'm not.

How about we simply enforce the laws that we have - you break a law, you use a gun, you do serious time. I'll close by saying the world would be a much better place without firearms. But that's not the world we live in.

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What do all of the public massacres in the past decade or so have in common? They were in places enumerated by law where concealed carry was prohibited by state or federal law. The evil doerss select these places becuase of this fact so they will be unlikely to encounter an armed citizen. Obviously, when children are massacred in a place where lawful carry of firearms by vetted citizens is prohibited it is time to question these unconstitutional laws.

As a qualified Tactical Action Officer and Command duty officer, in the Navy we had a plan in place for any type of forced entry into a ship or station. The designated responders immediately dealt with the threat while the rest of the ship remained in place and stayed out of their way in a security alert. This is why it is reasonable to have armed security in every public school with an action plan. Training and a plan are key. Any active shooter can shoot through barriers and locked doors, will only delay for a matter of seconds ... the LEOs won't arrive for many minutes at the best, and the SWAT team for 20min to an hour. It's all over by then. If we can pay for a 100+ educators in a district at $60-80K, and administrators at $100K + salaries we can pay for 5 armed officers or security at $40K. (I'm not against paying teachers well.) We could hire unemployed veterans with existing veterans preference laws. The reason we don't is because the teacher's and LEO unions don't want competition for their salaries, and have a lot of sway with local school boards. In the interim, we could allow teachers and admin staff to be lawfully armed if they have a CHL. I agree a teacher or staff member with a CHL isn't a trained tactician, but all these fears & concerns are largely unfounded until we have ONE example where an armed teacher has misconduct with a firearm. Lets have even and outside chance that the active shooter threat can be stopped by a lawfully armed employee. Because of the current laws, the children still don't have a chance in an active shooter scenario.

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H'mmm, I've seen plenty of places that didn't allow patrons to enter if they were just wearing a t-shirt, or shorts, or if they weren't wearing a tie, or not wearing shoes. How about church? How do you feel about firearms in church? Courtrooms?

I absolutely think firearms should be allowed in church. There have been several church shootings in the past few years, including a murder in OH recently. The church isn't protecting me or my family with armed security or a magical spell to keep armed evil doers away. OH CC law requires the consent of the clergy before carry is allowed in any church.

A courthouse is a different story as all people go through security screenings to enter, and are relatively a more controlled envioronment --- but I see no problem with a citizen (especially one forced into jury duty by the state) who has a current CHL being allowed to carry once they identify thier firearm to security check point. The've already been vetted by that very counties law enforcement establishment as authorized to carry concealed.

Are there any incidents where an "Active Shooter Event", outside of a school, was stopped by someone with a concealed weapon? If it never happens outside of a school, why would we think it would happen inside of a school.

And are we to require businesses and workplaces to allow guns on their private property?

Just in the last week alone there were three robberies stopped by folks carrying. Another car jacking (near a school) stopped the same way. I suspect there are many crimes that are stopped or diminished in severity with folks stepping in with a CC.

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Was that in your area or nationwide, the three stopped robberies?
From the linked study:
"SCHULMAN: Okay. Let's ask the "one year" question since you say that's based on better recollections. In the last year how many people who responded to the questionnaire said that they had used a firearm to defend themselves against an actual confrontation from a human being attempting a crime?
KLECK: Well, as a percentage it's 1.33 percent of the respondents. When you extrapolate that to the general population, it works out to be 2.4 million defensive uses of guns of some kind -- not just handguns but any kind of a gun -- within that previous year, which would have been roughly from Spring of 1992 through Spring of 1993.
SCHULMAN: And if you focus solely on handguns?
KLECK: It's about 1.9 million, based on personal, individual recollections.
SCHULMAN: And what percentage of the respondents is that? Just handguns?
KLECK: That would be 1.03 percent.
SCHULMAN: How many respondents did you have total?
KLECK: We had a total of 4,978 completed interviews, that is, where we had a response on the key question of whether or not there had been a defensive gun use.
SCHULMAN: So roughly 50 people out of 5000 responded that in the last year they had had to use their firearms in an actual confrontation against a human being attempting a crime?
KLECK: Handguns, yes.
SCHULMAN: Had used a handgun. And slightly more than that had used any gun.
KLECK: Right.
SCHULMAN: So that would be maybe 55, 56 people?
KLECK: Something like that, yeah."

Anyone want to speculate on what the 'error' is on an extrapolation like that?